Name-calling was used to dismiss rural turbine resistance, while urban gas plant protestors cost the public 1.1B for relocations.

Legitimate requests for assistance from MPPs were demeaningly answered with form-letters from both Liberal and NDP representatives.

Green Energy was launched without any meaningful business plan, but with the claim that green energy was needed to eliminate coal-fired electricity – a demonstrably false pretext – while government dispossessed rural residents of fundamental democratic rights…

What the list fails to iterate is the inherent corruption and totalitarian over-reach evident from the outset.

Back when the Green Energy and Economy Act (GEA) was first introduced Tom Adams warned “This will destroy the foundations of effective public utility regulation”

He pointed out:

It also, grants unusually extreme search-and-seizure powers to state inspectors searching for illegal appliances and other breaches of the law.

Supposedly that threat to privacy and property was quashed, yet there were hints of that draconian provision in the intimidating ‘smart’ meter installation programme.

Adams lamented:

Ontario was at one time an internationally recognized leader in the theory and practice of public utility regulation. The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has been led by, and has also hosted, many of the top experts in the related fields of law, economics, accounting and public administration.

The foundation for Ontario’s historic success in public utility regulation lies in the simple, logical structure of the system. Historically, the mandating legislation of the Ontario Energy Board and the history of supporting precedents and decisions were based on the principle that customers will pay no more than necessary to ensure good quality utility service over the long term. Investors recover their costs, including a reasonable rate of return on their investments, but only prudently incurred costs can be recovered.

Imprudent costs are borne by shareholders. Governments of the day could influence the process by controlling appointments to the OEB, but otherwise the OEB enjoyed substantial independence.

In place of these sound principles, the new legislation allows extensive political interference in utility regulation and requires the regulator to approve excessive rates for consumers if the underlying costs are associated with politically preferred projects.

Turning away from the regulatory model that served Ontario so successfully and replacing it with these conflicted requirements is being done to ensure that the conservation and renewable energy options the Minister seeks to promote can avoid a regulatory test of prudence.

This is the point at which alarms should have echoed in every community and home in the Province. Ontario Minister of Energy George Smitherman was quoted as saying, “the GEA will build on municipal leadership, uploading responsibilities to Queen’s Park.”

The objective of the GEA, which turns Ontario’s electricity market from a low-cost system to a whatever-it-costs regime, is allegedly to reduce the province’s carbon footprint. But no carbon-reduction targets have been set or will ever be set, no doubt because it is highly unlikely any significant reductions will occur.

It is a myth that solar and wind power have no carbon emissions, as news reports often say.

The main policy vehicle for renewable power is a massive subsidy regime. The subsidies will take the form of feed-in tariffs, following Europe’s lead. The main impact of such policies in Europe has been soaring prices for electricity and energy, and a carbon footprint that’s as big as ever. It just costs twice as much, with electricity prices that are double and triple North American rates.

Corcoran did a good job following-the-money finding:

The major backers of green power tax-and-grab regimes are hundreds of businesses that stand to collect billions in subsidies and tax benefits from solar, wind and other alternative
energy forms.

There’s the Ontario Green Energy Act Alliance, the major lobbying effort behind the new green police state. It self-describes its origins:

“The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA), together with other leading trade associations, environmental groups, First Nations, developers, manufacturers, farmers and landowners, is initiating a campaign to create the Ontario Green Energy Act.”

Among the backers of the alliance is the Pembina Institute. The institute’s former climate campaigner, Robert Hornung, is now head of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, which in turn gives money to Pembina. Pembina writes glowing reports on renewables.

Pembina also receives money from the Ontario Power Authority, the Ontario Energy Board and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.
Another alliance backer is Environmental Defence, the radical Ottawa-based activist group headed by Rick Smith. Last year, Environmental Defence received $500,000 in funding from the government of Ontario. It would appear that one source of that money was the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, which is largely funded by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government. Rick Smith recently resigned from the Greenbelt Foundation, where he was a director.

Another Green Act Alliance backer is the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. It gets money from local community groups, such as the York Region Environmental Alliance, which is largely funded by the agenda-driven Ontario Trillium Foundation, which spends Ontario lottery cash. The Clean Air Alliance also counts the Energy Action Council of Toronto as a member. Its major backers include the Ontario Energy Ministry and the Ontario lottery operation.

In summary, the Ontario government pays millions of dollars to environmental activists and corporate interests to lobby the Ontario government and agitate for the Green Energy Act, which act serves the interests of the agitators.

And just in case the political connections might be lost, the Ontario Clean Energy Act Alliance’s Web site provides a handy link to the Ontario Liberal Party — not the Ontario government, but the Liberal Party — web site that highlights George Smitherman and Dalton McGuinty. The Web link says:

“Paid for by the Toronto Centre Provincial Liberal Association.”

Astonishingly Ontario Liberals were given an extended mandate for their flagrant kleptocracy by the greedy and the low-information voters.

Tom Adams’ warning from 2009 is yet more relevant today: Even if regulatory integrity and competition are someday restored, it will take at least a generation for consumers to pay down the cost of the imprudent decisions the Province of Ontario makes.

Truly the sins of the Liberals shall be visited on the next generations

Just in: This an important opportunity to help expose the true costs of “green”energy: a wind warrior needs money to fund an FOI to pry truth out of the wind developers.

Getting information through FOI is not a cheap or easy process, as LSARC discovered. It took over one year and an appeal to the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario to pry information out of the Ministry of Natural Resources And Forests (MNRF). The MNRF’s obstructionism was so blatant that the Privacy Commissioner cited our case during a conference in Sault Ste Marie.

Learn more about this attempt to find the truth about bird and bat deaths by going here

Please consider donating to their cause, the response has been wonderful so far, but they still need your help…

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About lsarc

LSarc is grassroots protection of Lake Superior through citizen science and volunteerism. If you are interested in preserving intact ecosystems and restoring biological integrity of the Lake Superior watershed using the scientific method to test hypotheses and research, then you are LSarc
LSarc is proud to be a member of the John Muir Trust and the 60th member organization of Wind Concerns Ontario